CrookshanksG

Season 1 was amazing!

Season 2 was so similar to season 1 that the suspense and thrill was no longer there.

Season 3 was downright predictable (i mean, duh, fight all you want but I know Gi Hun will make it up to the end) and a disappointment. And I was watching on a 1.5x speed.

The foreigners are so cringey!

Some characters are so useless. Like seriously, Wi Ha Jun's character spent 3 seasons looking for the island and did what? Ask for "why?", got no answer, and left the island. He just cost a lot of lives lost and accomplished nothing. Oh, except for being a guardian to a billionaire baby!

The only redeeming characters for me are the selfless Player 120 (Park Sung Hoon was amazing!) - too bad he was eliminated early on - saaaad, and Players 246 (the one who escaped) 222 (baby's mother) and 149 (grandma), and guard 11 (who helped player 246 escaped).

I wish they make a separate IMDB for the first season. I would have rated it higher. But Squid Game is ruined for me because of season 2 and especially season 3. By this point, they were just obviously milking on the show for its success.

I'm so so glad I came across this drama!!

I was just in the middle of my Hospital Playlist obsession that I wanted to watch Jeon Mi-do (Chae Songhwa) even in her smallest role in this drama.

But since episode 1, I completely forgot she was the reason I started watching this until I saw her scene. By then, I was in too deep to this drama that I watched the whole series in 1 night, losing sleep and a lot of tears. Even after the final scene in the last episode and credits rolled in, I was still sobbing! I was that emotionally invested. I was so happy for them that they got to be legally parent and child even after 2 years (which was necessary by law but nonetheless painful and time wasted for a growing child). It was such a beautiful story!

Lee Bo Young (Soo Jin) and especially Heo Yool (Yoon Bok) splendidly played their part! No wonder Heo Yool won the Baeksang's Best New Actress Award in 2018, and rightfully so! A 9-year old evoking all feelings to the viewers is something special. She was born to be an actress and play the role. Lee Bo Young was really good too! A shame she wasn't nominated in Baeksang 2018. Their relationship was something so special I was glad I'm able to see. Their bond far exceeds beyond the connection through umbilical cords. It can make you think that maybe in their past lives, they were parent and child too and they just made their way back to each other.

The different kinds of mother portrayed was also beautifully presented. Adoption is such a beautiful thing. It is not given to you by fate but by choice.

I keep a list with all the kdramas I watched and I rate them by a number of thumbs up or down, up to three thumbs, if I like, and a number of hearts, up to 3 hearts, if I love. This is now my 153rd on the list and I rated it with 3 hearts (highest!). The last 3 hearts I gave was at number 38! Wow! Even I am surprised.

That's how much I love love love this drama!

Beautifully done! Baeksang's Best Drama awardee in 2018 and rightfully so! I wish many people would see this!

I've been putting off watching this drama for a long time. It didn't really catch my attention after 2 episodes the first time I watched it months ago, even though I love medical dramas. But I decided to restart it out of the blue and I finished both seasons in 5 days! Now, I'm obsessed with the main leads esp IkSong and all their songs and BTS! I LOVED IT despite the flaws.

I love the friendship between all 5 of them. They're at their 40s and well-respected in their fields yet act like 7 years old when together. I love that.

I so love their playlist! Look forward to their band practice every episode. The song choices and lyrics are amazing and relevant to the episode's happenings. I can tell that it was very well-thought.

I LOVE the HUMOR!! Almost every episode I laugh out loud to their humor, even if most of it are lame. And that was its charm! Ik-jun's humor, especially. He's soooo good! Well, all of them are, really!!

I love the romance, though as a big fan of romance-themed dramas, I would say that the romance part didn't satisfy me. I would love to see more of Ik-jun and Song-hwa as a couple. The development of their relationship was so good! I actually rooted Jeong-won and Song-hwa at first due to the actors playing but I fell in love with Ik-jun halfway through season 1. They developed their relationship gradually and beautifully that I was bummed they got together only almost at the end and wasn't really explored more afterwards.

Though I understand that they really focused on the group's friendship, which was really good to the point that you want to be part of their circle, I just wish to see more romance between them. I want MORE OF IKSONGGGGG!

I'm giving an 8 though because I don't like how some, if not most of the scenes are cut off somewhat cut off. Most of the times, i feel like the scenes are unfinished or they leave it to the viewers to assume that that's what happened. They jump to something random, or all together different scene, then cut off again. Sometimes, i think scenes or storylines are simply forgotten. The transitions between scenes are too abrupt. I didn't like that. I would have loved it if they just present the facts as it is and not leave me guessing or assuming.

The medical aspect are quite not enough for me too. They really usually didn't show the surgeries. Just the surgeon's "doing" the surgeries. And it feels that you just have to fill in the blanks.

Sometimes, I also find it difficult to follow the patients and their stories or even the doctors'. Since as I have said, I feel like most scenes are cut off or unfinished, or jumping from one to another, I can't follow some of the patients as their stories aren't really developed enough. The timeline sometimes confuses me too. Who gave Song-hwa 2 cups of coffee and put it on top of her car when she needs to go back to Sokcho at the end of S2E2? My first thought was Ik-jun...but going back, was it Seong-bin? I was possibly given the episode's story. It wasn't clearly shown. I want answers too. Not vague scenes. Don'g leave me hanging and assuming. Lol.

Too many characters. Doctors and patients alike. Though patients are given to come and go. I feel like there are too many characters introduced but they just disappear as fast as they were introduced that it wasn't really worth knowing them. Though, I feel like their existence, especially the doctors, were really there to make you understand and appreciate their positions in the medical field, not the characters. The nurses, the ER doctors, the interns, the residents. The writers emphasized their importance to make you appreciate them not just the lead doctors. And I did see that. I appreciated that.

But despite the feeling that it seems there are too many characters shown, many characters are also missing that I think are more important and crucial for us to understand the main leads. Like Song-hwa's family. We only really heard her mom's voice with no visual of how she looks like.

Overall though, I loved the non-toxic atmosphere. The friendship, the romance, the humor and the music and their playlist! I liked the side characters too, especially Jae-hak, Seong-bin, and Chuchu. As well as the elders, Rosa and Mr. Ju. The characters are all so pure-hearted.

However, I wish the way it was all presented was better. The transitions between scenes and the timeline can also be improved. Also, I wasn't really satisfied as I feel like almost every scene ends in a cliffhanger. Or they end open-ended stories. The ending was quite lukewarm too.

All that said, I would still love to see more of them! Season 3, PLEASE!!!